The 39-year-old Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president, Sachin Pilot , talks to The Hindu about his party’s prospects in the Assembly elections in 2018 and the state of the minorities. Excerpts:
On the Congress’s prospects in Rajasthan
In 2013, we came down to 21 MLAs, the lowest ever score for the Congress since Independence. Post that debacle, Sonia Gandhi ji and Rahul ji asked me to become State president in end-2014. ... the Congress has very strong roots in Rajasthan. The organisational structure is vibrant and ready to take on a political challenge. In the last three-and-a-half years, we have won three of four Assembly byelections, setting the trend for the Congress’s revival. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress polled 30% votes, the BJP 56%. A year-and-a-half later in the panchayat elections, we polled 45.5%, the BJP 47%. The Chief Minister belongs to Jhalawar, but after the nagarpalika elections, the Jhalawar Corporation has a Congress chairman, Dholpur municipality has a Congress chairman, Barah — from where the Chief Minister’s son is MP — has a Congress chairman. We captured areas people thought we won’t be able to win ... The Congress is rejuvenated because we went to the people not just to criticise the BJP but to present an alternative model of governance.
On former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s public criticism of the failure to win the Dholpur byelection
Not at all. He spent six days in Dholpur, campaigning. The BJP candidate was from the same community as Mr. Gehlot, the community of Malis; so he tried hard to make sure that part of that vote should come to the Congress. We fought a really good election, our votes increased from last time but ... One Dholpur byelection fought with the State machinery’s brute force is not indicative of the public mood. Incidentally, just after this bypoll, the Congress won two byelections in the panchayat and nagarpalika, both in Dholpur, as soon as the government machinery was withdrawn.
On the Congress’s strategy for Rajasthan
Rajasthan ranks number one for atrocities against Scheduled Tribes, number two against Scheduled Castes, and number three for rapes. The BJP government [talks of] Resurgent Rajasthan, investment, etc., [but it’s] all propaganda. The farming community, rural-urban, young, old, women all know the government has spectacularly failed.
We won’t bank upon anti-incumbency but present a better governance model, which includes everything from labour laws to education to investment to healthcare to poverty alleviation to increasing industrial output... we’ll enshrine a stakeholdership connecting with the youth, farmers, members of all religions.
On the Congress’s face for Rajasthan, especially after Ashok Gehlot has been made general secretary for Gujarat
We’ll fight this election collectively. [as State president] it would be foolish not to take advantage of people who have 30 or 40 years of experience; I need their assets, talent and experience to steer the party to victory.
I don’t think we need to present one, two or four faces but what the Congress stands for. None of us is bothered about who will be chief minister, but about Congress getting a clear majority.
Whether the Congress is wary of talking about minorities, now that the BJP is in power
Whether churches are being attacked, Pehlu Khan is killed in Rajasthan, Dalits are attacked in Saharanpur or there is a mob lynching in Dadri, it is there for the world to see. All are equal in our eyes. I will defend anyone who is weak, who is being attacked, male, female, Dalit, Muslim, Christian. There is an invisible reign of terror unleashed by the invisible hand of the government through so-called gaurakshaks. This medieval justice mentality has seeped in because they know that the powers high up will protect them.
